Actually, Andy Murray is a Scot, but I don’t think the tennis-mad section of the UK is making that sort of distinction tonight. The gap between the last time an Englishman won the Gentlemen’s Singles tournament at the All England Lawn Tennis Club and Murray’s win today was 77 years. Not quite the 105 years between the Cubs’ last World Series win in 1908 and now or the 86 years between 2004 and the previous Red Sox win in 1918, but still a long long time.

And so with a performance of unstinting focus from this wonderfully self-made athlete, one of the outstanding omissions in British sport’s modern history has been filled. Perhaps Fred Perry, so often dug up and marched about the place over the past few years as a kind of courtly reproach to successive generations of underachievement, may finally be allowed to rest easy again, gratefully re-consigned to the Wimbledon museum.

Yes indeed. Let’s hope he and his descendants will now be left in peace.

Congratulations, Mr. Murray, and congratulations to Marion Bartoli for winning the Ladies’ Singles. Also, congratulations to Americans Bob and Mike Bryan, who won their third Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Doubles and now hold all four Grand Slam titles this season and Olympic Gold to boot.